Balboni Turns Into Baloney in Fall : Royals’ Slugger Has .150 Lifetime Average in Postseason

In the wake of a 3-for-25 performance in the playoffs, Steve Balboni is 2 for 8 in the World Series. He’s a man for any season except fall.

Last year, in the playoff with Detroit, the Kansas City first baseman went 1 for 10.

His career postseason average is .150. He has struck out 14 times in 43 at-bats, which is consistent with his career ratio. That he has yet to deliver an extra-base hit in those 43 at-bats isn’t.

Balboni hit 36 homers and drove in 88 runs while batting .243 with 166 strikeouts this year. He had 28 homers and 77 RBIs last year.

Balboni, of course, is frustrated over his lack of postseason productivity. He knows the new growth on his bald head resembles goat horns. He knows, however, it could be worse. He could still be with the New York Yankees--or, more likely on the shuttle back to Columbus, the Yankees’ Triple-A farm club.

He was known in the Yankee organization as Bye-Bye Balboni. The nickname alluded to the distance of his minor league homers and the fact that an impatient George Steinbrenner wouldn’t give him the time he needed to develop in the majors. He made round trips between Columbus and New York in each of three straight seasons before being traded in December of 1983. Bye-bye for a final time.

“The Yankees (i.e. Steinbrenner) don’t put up with this kind of performance,” Balboni said of his postseason effort.

“If I was in New York, I’d have probably played my last game. There’d probably be a lot of noise in the clubhouse and I’d be on my way to Columbus again, or out of baseball entirely.

“There’s pressure in what I’m doing now, but not like it was there. “

And Balboni knows, of course, that despite his frustration, despite the growing pressure, his name will be in the Kansas City lineup again when the World Series resumes tonight.

The Royals, who hit .225 in the playoff with Toronto after finishing last in the American League in runs, hit .234 and scored just three runs in losing the first two Series games to St. Louis.

Hal McRae is already absent from the Kansas City lineup because there is no designated hitter in this year’s Series. The Royals have no choice. They must keep playing Balboni and keep crossing their fingers.

“The best thing I can do for Steve is to pat him on the back and write his name in the lineup,” Manager Dick Howser said. “He may be the most erratic hitter I’ve ever seen, but I’m not going to lose confidence after eight or nine games. I mean, 36 homers and 88 RBIs. That’s the true measurement. That’s a hell of a season.”

The soft-spoken Balboni stood at his Busch Stadium locker after a Monday workout.

“Obviously, the most frustrating thing is that I want to contribute, that I want to be a part of it, and I don’t feel that I am,” he said. “It’s not as bad when we win, but even then I don’t feel that I’ve done my part.

“The problem really developed in the last two weeks of the regular season. I wasn’t swinging the bat that well and it carried into the playoffs, where I tend to feel that I shouldn’t be trying to adjust like I would during the season.

“I mean, in the middle of the season, you know you have 100 or so games left. It’s not as if each at-bat is that critical. You know you can experiment if it means you’ll benefit in the long run. Now there is no long run. Each game might be the last.

“All I can do is try to put the bat on the ball and hope that a good swing might drive it out of the park. There’s pressure, but there’s pressure on everyone. Each at-bat is so important that I’m trying to confine my thinking to that. I’m trying not to take it home with me.

“I mean, once I leave the park, I’m trying not to think about anything except the next game.”

Balboni, at least, knows there’ll be that next game, another chance.

McRae is restricted to pinch-hitting. He’s had one at-bat in the two games.

Of the designated hitter rule, McRae said on the eve of the Series that he had come too far to be frustrated, that by hitting .291 with 46 RBIs in his last 56 games he had returned from the dead, reviving his career.

Now, however, the Royals are 0-2 and in obvious need of an offensive transfusion. George Brett has three hits in his last 19 at-bats. Willie Wilson has four in his last 21. The Royals have lost two games they should have won, wasting the superb pitching of left-handers Danny Jackson and Charlie Leibrandt.

McRae said he’d like to be part of it, that it’s difficult pacing and watching. “But it wouldn’t help if I sat around bitching about the system. The other guys might start thinking that we had real reason to complain about it. I mean, it’s something I have no control over, so I can’t be frustrated by it.”

McRae and his teammates were exchanging lively needles after Monday’s workout. The bitter loss of Sunday night suddenly seemed in the distant past.

“The mood is good,” McRae said. “But we know we have to win tomorrow, that we can’t go 0-3.

“If we win tomorrow we’ll be in about the same position we were in against Toronto. We’ll be in position to take control again.”

The Cardinals’ four-run, ninth-inning rally Sunday night deprived Leibrandt of a 2-0 win--and an immediate desire to talk to the media.

“I went home, had a bunch of beers and went to bed,” he said Monday. “I was extremely disappointed and extremely frustrated. It was the lowest point of my baseball career, to be so close to winning and have it taken away.”

Did he expect Manager Dick Howser to bring in Dan Quisenberry at some point in the inning?

“I don’t try to think for Dick,” Leibrandt said. “I wasn’t looking over my shoulder. I felt good, I felt confident, I felt I could close it out like I had the eighth inning. I never thought I’d lose it until I lost it.”

Leibrandt, 28-16 in two regular seasons with the Royals, has absorbed a succession of difficult October defeats, including 1-0 to the Tigers in last year’s playoff and 3-1 to Toronto in Game 4 after pitching eight shutout innings.

“I keep asking myself, ‘Why me?’ ” Leibrandt said. “It’s frustrating, but I know I’ll have my day down the road.”

Howser earned plaudits Monday as he patiently re-explained his thinking during that fatal ninth inning to wave after wave of reporters.

The points he continued to emphasize were that he still has complete confidence in Quisenberry but he didn’t bring in Quisenberry because he thought Leibrandt was still throwing quality pitches.

“The easy thing would have been to make the move and put the burden on somebody else’s back, but I don’t think anyone could have pitched as well as Charlie did,” he said. “They still haven’t hit him hard.”

Howser said the loss was his most painful only in the sense that it was his most recent.

Of media comments that he is in the same company with Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, Howser said, “I’m not Italian and I’m not left-handed, but I am in better shape than Tommy. As for being in the same company as a manager, that’s a compliment because he’s a hell of a manager.”